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8/25/2011 @ 5:26PM199,420 views

Twelve-Year-Old's Green Tea Stand Shut Down in Massachusetts

Well it’s not exactly lemonade but it’ll do. Christopher Carr’s twelve-year-old stepson had set up a smoothie and green-tea stand near their house when they moved back to the States after the earthquake in Japan. After they’d set up shop, Christopher took his daughter back inside to get some lunch, leaving his son to manage things at the stand.

After my daughter finished eating and as we approached the end of our street where the drink stand was, I could see from afar that the sign was pulled up and put away, the cooler was shut with everything which we had so carefully arranged on the tray table put away, and my stepson was huddled up and sitting on the rail, staring out between his knees at the ocean.

“What happened?” I asked when I got down there. I wondered if he had gotten discouraged that no one was buying his drinks or maybe that no one could understand his accent. Or maybe he was just lonely down there by himself.

“The police told me to pack up and go home,” he said. Or, more accurately I discovered after making a few phone calls, the town police swung by and wished him good luck, and then afterwards, “someone in brown” came by and made my stepson stop selling drinks at the end of our street, because this required a permit, and my stepson did not have a permit to sell drinks.

After hearing a little more from my stepson and talking to the town police, I discovered that it was the Massachusetts State Police that broke up our lemonade stand. After attempting several times to contact the State Police, I reached only answering machines. Apparently, having someone on call on weekends is not in the Massachusetts State Police’s budget (but breaking up lemonade stands is somehow cost-effective).

So a lot of confusion obviously exists around the events described in Christopher’s blog post. This is understandable, but I don’t think it means we’re any closer to any conclusive answers. From what I can tell, trying to parse out the details, here is what happened: Christopher left the stand briefly while his 12-year-old watched it. When he returned the boy told him police shut it down. He mentioned they had a brown (possibly tan) uniform. When Christopher phoned the local police, they told him this:

I don’t know what else to say. I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble, or tarnish the image of one police department over another. I’m just reporting what happened.

So Christopher extrapolated from this they they must be talking about the DCR Rangers (per my update below). It’s possible also that the local switchboard gave him the run-around, or that his son’s description of events were off, or that it was a Ranger on beach patrol over-stepping his authority, or any number of other possibilities.

It does appear that it was not state police, or at least not your typical state police. However, I have no reason to suspect that the events in question did not happen. If someone was going to make up a story about the state police, I’m pretty sure they’d get the uniform right. However, when you’re dealing with kids in a stressful situation, multiple state agencies, etc. there’s bound to be some confusion. The local police definitely told Christopher it was state police, and maybe it was or maybe it was some other state agency in charge of patrolling the beach.

Nobody is trying to paint the cops in a bad light here. Cops and other state agencies across the country really are shutting down lemonade stands and yard sales and so forth. This isn’t an outlandish story by any stretch of the imagination. In these cases, the police are often just doing their job and applying the law – even if it is a bad law, the cops didn’t write it themselves.

If I get any more details I’ll publish them.

P.S. I think it’s also important to note that someone in the government shut down a twelve-year-old kid’s green-tea stand. Whether this was state police, rangers, or the mayor doesn’t really matter. The state is cracking down on kids selling drinks for fun. That’s ridiculous, and I think there are probably plenty of people working in government – cops, politicians, etc. – who would agree that it’s ridiculous.

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Yeah…the Nazi references and screaming over evil government is getting pretty ridiculous. There are bad laws and sometimes people in charge of law enforcement do bad things. That does not make the police brownshirts for goodness sakes.

mtcboston, The Mass State Police do indeed wear blue unis, however, some of the Special State Police Officers and Municipal State Police Officers in training (I’d say buttheads in training if it turns out they were involved in this) *do* most certainly wear a dark tan uniform. Unless the colors on my monitor are going wacky.

Search Massachusetts State Police – Executive Office of Public Safety.

When you get to their site look on the left side of the page near the top and you should see “Our Organization” – From the links under that heading try these paths:

Gosh, yes. those police union scum are just doing their jobs (for 3 times the pay of everyone else, and triple benefits and lifetime pensions after twenty years during which they brag on their first job benefits while getting a second government union scum job. Yes Sir. “Serving” the public (but not 10 year olds selling lemonade for a quarter).

You DO realize – SSPO’s are NOT Troopers? That it’s a certification administered by the agency? That they wear the uniforms of the agency that sends them? That recruits in training for MSP do not leave the academy in anything but suit and tie, NOR is there a class in sesssion – nor has there been in 6 years? And no, they don’t “wear tan” during training either!! (white T’s black pants, names on backs – see photos on the website)

The author is guilty of defamation and spreading falsehoods. Perhaps he’s gotten a ticket his “Don’t you know who I am” prose didn’t get him out of.

@officerobie59 There are many more similarities than you think. The nazis served an all powerful federal govt that criminalized their citizens as a means of ruling over them. There is no greater power than when a govt can make you a criminal. It allows them to do whatever they want with you. If you truly believe you are free try building something on land you own without a permit. You don’t even really own that land either. You rent it from the govt for money they extort from you with the threat of force and if you resist they kill you (or throw you in prison) and take it then “sell” it to someone else under the same guise. We are but a few steps from becoming nazi Germany. They didn’t start off with genocide either.

Agreed, the police are government are not Nazi’s and brownshirts but eventually came about in pre-war Germany because of the step-by-step creep of an ever stronger government.

Freedom and liberty are very delicate. They need to be nurtured and cultivated daily. Shutting down a kid’s lemonade stand is not in the best interests of anybody. It seems so harmless in the big picture right now but what is next?

Already properties are being taken by eminent domain and turned over to entities that can create tax money for the locality.

There is talk already of government taking possession of 250,000 abandoned homes and renting them out. Sounds good on the surface but take a moment and contemplate that if you will. Please.

Starting with you presumably? Godwins ‘Law’ is a joke..particularly when the only law that is being observed here is that the longer the US Govt continues on its present course and behavior, the more it resembles Nazi Germany in its early days.

The child in the article referred to someone (whoever it might be) in a ‘brown’ uniform; and while I got the impression it was *understood* that the person could be anyone; the child seems to have been under the impression it was a policeman.

When his dad started asking around about who it could be, Christopher was told it could be might be some sort of Ranger/Trooper.

Nothing certain. However, it comes through loud and clear (to me) that there is confusion about who closed down the stand (coulda been a trooper, coulda been whoknowswho). But since it was suggested to Christopher by various sources that it could have been a ‘trooper’, I thought that’s as good a place as any to start looking.

The short response? Trooper schrooper …no one said it was definitely a trooper but might as well start the search there as anywhere.